


home is home after all, even if everything has fallen apart

by joanofarcticmonkeys



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Unrequited Love, personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 15:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16726173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanofarcticmonkeys/pseuds/joanofarcticmonkeys
Summary: i just wanted to write.





	home is home after all, even if everything has fallen apart

I never thought it would happen to me. I thought of myself as one of the lucky ones. I watched countless friends choke on their bellflowers, their red dahlias, their goddamned yellow carnations, and thanked god that it wasn’t me. I heard of stories of people chosing to die because they didn’t want their flowers removed. I thought of them as stupid to keep loving someone who didn’t love them back, to keep wanting to want someone who didn’t want them. I pitied them, for loving someone who didn’t love them back. I loved knowing that I’d never have a goddamn plant choking the life out of me, growing out of my lungs, wrapping itself around my trachea, reminding me of how I’m not loved. But I get it now. The first time I saw a sign of your dying love, I spat up begonia. You wanted a break. I spent the next week spitting up two-toned carnations into napkins, hoping you’d change your mind. I knew you hadn’t a day before you called me, because I started growing a garden of anemone and cyclamen in my body, lying in bed choking out petals and tears. I could barely make a sound through the bouquet tumbling out of my mouth. I tried to kill my garden by drowning it in alcohol, smoking up a storm to destroy the vegetation whose only sin was to simply exist. I hid my flowers, I hid my unrequited love, because who the hell expects the love of your life to fall out of love with you? I hid it till I couldn’t, I hid it till I couldn’t go on swallowing the flowers, till my body could hold no more, bear my feelings no longer. I threw up everything I’d been holding inside me, and it nearly destroyed me. But then something changed and I stopped wanting to hide them. I started collecting them, keeping my love in jars, filled multitudes of notebooks with pressed flowers splattered with blood. I didn’t want them removed. I wanted to keep them. I wanted to keep my love for you, because I don’t know who I am without it. You make me cry now, you made me cry then, and you made me cry before it all. But you also made me happy. You made me laugh. You once made me feel loved. How could I ever let go of that? 

And so now, I choke on my daffodils and primrose, hoping that one day you’ll come back to me.

**Author's Note:**

> Hanahaki Disease is a (fictional) disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings, or when the victim dies. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim's romantic feelings also disappear.
> 
> bellflower; unwavering love, “I need you”  
> red dahlia; betrayal, “I can’t believe you did this to me”  
> yellow carnations; rejection, “I’m sorry”  
> begonia; caution, beware, “I need some time”  
> two-toned carnations; refusal, “I can’t do this”  
> anemone; forsaken, “I’m leaving you”  
> cyclamen; goodbye, “this is over”  
> daffodils; unreciprocated love, “please love me”  
> primrose; eternal love, “I can’t live without you”


End file.
